curio, i appreciate your help very much.

it turns out that the problem was not a problem at all. according to my ISP, my router will not allow me to enter in my external IP addy from within my office and have it come back correctly. i was on the phone with an ISP Rep and she said she could get to my default website (just a simple text page for testing purposes) jsut fine.

this is a new thing to me.. i've never heard of not being able to get to a website via IP from certain places. *shrug* she assured me that once my DNS entries are updated (which will be later this week once everything is tidy) there will be no problem.

i wish i knew this on friday before i spent 3 days on it. sheesh.